The Isle of Man is best known as a holiday destination and as the venue of the TT motorcycle races. In recent years, it has also become recognized as an international financial centre for banking and commerce. What is not so well understood is the island's status as an internally self-governing dependency of the British Crown (with its own parliament), and its long quest for national self-determination from the time of the enforced sale of the island to the British Crown in 1765.In "The Isle of Man: Portrait of a Nation", John Grimson tells the story of the island's evolution, from its geological birth pangs in the Cambrian Period of pre-history, some 500 million years ago, through successive waves of Stone-Age, Bronze-Age and Celtic Iron-Age settlers, to the Viking raids and settlements of the eighth to thirteenth centuries, which brought the origins of the island's unique system of parliamentary government, and up to the political, social and commercial developments of the modern era.In part two of the book, the author takes us on a tour of the island's superb coastal and upland landscapes, and around its historic towns, villages and parishes.
With the aid of some 200 illustrations, the book tells of the Isle of Man and its people, and of how they came to be what they are today.